As Meta doubles down on AI tools, advertisers give up some control

As Meta doubles down to ensure its dominance in an AI-enhanced advertising marketplace, marketers must grapple with giving up more control over their ad placements — and eventually, their creative assets.

“Because of all of these advancements in AI, we've gotten to the point where our ad system can predict who will be interested in the ads better than advertisers could ever predict themselves,” Meta’s head of retail, fashion, and luxury Karin Tracy said in a call with reporters.

A Meta analysis of over one million US campaigns found that when brands used its automated product promotion Advantage+ Shopping Campaign tool, they saw an average return on ad spend of $4.52—a 22% increase on average for first-time users.

Beauty company Kitsch and direct-to-consumer fashion brand Tuckernuck have both used the tool, and said it has helped them plan and buy ads more efficiently on its platforms. According to September Rinnier Votta, co-founder of Tuckernuck, the ability to set conversion value rules allows brands to inform the system of what they value most. 

“We can customise how to optimise a campaign in order to get to the outcomes that are best for the businesses,” she said.

AI has brought more effectiveness to Meta’s shopping ads by offering better recommendations to users, leading to more time spent on its properties and higher engagement, especially on Reels and videos, Meta’s Tracy added. AI has also been able to suggest better ways to find the right audiences.

“If it’s not performing in the way we want to, we're filtering things out,” said Yingying Kuang, Kitsch VP of growth and e-commerce. “But for the most part, we've continued to see extreme success by letting AI take over and expose us to new audiences that we wouldn't have thought of.” 

“That puts a tremendous amount of strain on creative agencies to deliver a lot of these different assets to mix and match within the algorithm,” Weisman said. “That's not even considering how it eventually shows up. It's not always the best physical experience or the best user experience, even though that's what the algorithm ‘says.’”

Creating assets for Meta’s AI tools takes resources for agencies and brands that are “already stretched thin,” Weisman added. 

“The ability to just push a button is enticing. It feels a little too good to be true, and probably it is,” he said. “If everything is created for Meta[‘s platforms], then you're probably just going to increase your spend there.” 

Meta has ambitions to use AI to help facilitate that process. During an earnings call in July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a vision where AI will help with all aspects of advertising, including creative development. 

“Over the long term, advertisers will basically just be able to tell us a business objective and a budget, and we're going to go do the rest for them,” he said,

It’s still early days for that vision, Meta’s Tracey said, adding Meta expects creative tools will evolve as AI improves.

“Brand guidelines are incredibly important, so that creativity and who your brand is will always come through and be led by the brands,” Tracy said. “But as we think about the ways that we're helping today – around things like text, around things like sizing and maybe backgrounds, maybe having some portion of the ad move – it’s where we're starting. And I think we have to really sort of crawl, walk, then run into this to make sure we get it right.”